Customer service adventures: Fees and waivers

Like Peyton Manning, who appeared in DirecTV commercials earlier this year, sometime you’ve got to call an audible on paying ridiculous fees.

My family moved recently. It was a short move, which involved a change of ZIP codes, but only two digits.

I should have counted the number of hours spent on customer service calls for the entire moving process, but the thought didn’t strike me until I was several minutes in on a call with DirecTV.

When you’re on these calls, always be on the lookout for fees and contracts. Agents will talk about them initially almost as if they’re scientific facts, but everything is negotiable — and when it’s not negotiable, you can find something else that is to balance it out.

Several months ago, we put our DirecTV service on hold, to keep costs down, and because we were expecting a baby to knock out a lot of our already small amount of TV time. (She did, by the way.) But we did think we’d turn it back on at some point.

While she was setting up the transfer of our Xcel services, my wife was offered the opportunity to move everything else — internet and television. She started that process, but gave CenturyLink and DirecTV my number for more information, since I’ve dealt with both for a move before.

Here’s what the DirecTV call looked like.

They proposed:

A $199 moving fee because we’re moving fewer than 12 months after a previous move

A $19.95 service fee of some kind, also related to the move, but I got the impression that this one applies to all moves

A 12-month contract, which I was told was part of having a technician visit our house to set everything up

All because I’m moving and keeping their services. Yeesh. Could there really be cause for the $199 penalty for moving within a year? Is moving frequently really a service that DirecTV customers abuse?

Because I’d called up to negotiate a low monthly rate about a year ago — again, we just don’t watch all that much TV, so it doesn’t make any sense to pay a high rate — their offer would have meant paying something like three times our monthly rate all in one shot.

And hey, we’ve been pretty fine without TV for these last few months, so it was no big deal to say, “I won’t pay it.”

Here’s the breakdown on my call (all numbers may be a little low, as I started counting a few minutes into the call):

3 number of departments I spoke with

9 questions asked by customer service representatives

3 times I was asked for my name

3 times I was asked for my phone number (reminder: they called me)

7 times I was put on hold

4 times I was offered services that would have raised my bill

40 minutes length of call

After speaking with her manager, my representative offered to waive the $19.95 fee and halve the $199 fee. I said we ought to switch it around — they should waive the $199 fee and halve the $19.95 fee. That didn’t go.

So I said we could work with her deal — half of the $199 fee and waiving the $19.95 fee — if we could find discounts for my monthly rate for the next 12 months.

She very kindly (and very quickly) found me a $10 discount for 12 months and a $5 discount for 3 months.

I took those deals — and asked for and received a waiver for the 12-month contract — and finished setting up my move.

Take your time with these calls and ask questions — ask what types of discounts are available, and which departments can offer them. My 40 minutes on the phone saved me from paying the full price on those transfer fees, and in the end more than made up for the remaining fees.

I’m not doing an end-zone dance — they’re definitely coming out ahead here — but I do feel good about the time spent and the money saved.

Business is personal. And it impacts nearly every aspect of our daily lives. From keeping a household budget to planning for retirement, to getting (and keeping) a job or just putting up with annoying guy in the next cubicle — we've got a lot on our minds, and Personal Interest wants to help you sort it all out. We're bringing together the Denver Post $mart Editor with variety of experts from the local business community. We've asked them to offer tips, advice and general observations aimed at making the business of everyday life a bit easier to manager. Note: The bloggers were selected for their expertise, but their opinions are solely their own. While many operate their own businesses or consulting firms, we are not endorsing or advocating their businesses.